F65: Failure of Success Criterion 1.1.1 due to omitting the alt attribute on img elements, area elements, and input elements of type "image"

Applicability

Description

This describes a failure condition for text alternatives on images. If there is no alt attribute, then assistive technologies are not able to identify the image or to convey its purpose to the user.

Some Assistive Technology might attempt to compensate for the missing alt text by reading the file name of the image. But it is insufficient to rely simply on the file name for many reasons. For example, file names may not be descriptive (e.g., images/nav01.gif), and technology specifications do not require descriptive file names. Some assistive technology may not read the file name if alt text is absent.

Examples

Example 1: Missing alt text

In the code example below, the person using a screen reader would not know the purpose of the image.